An electronic circuit is assembled by using various substrate-related-operation performing machines. Those substrate-related-operation performing machines are, for example, a solder printing machine that prints solder cream on a circuit substrate; an adhesive applying machine that applies adhesive to a circuit substrate; and a component mounting machine that mounts circuit components such as electronic components on a circuit substrate. Those substrate-related-operation performing machines need various assisting works that are carried out by workers; such as a maintenance work, a material supplying work, a re-setting work, or a recovering work. Above all, the material supplying work is an assisting work to supply solder cream, adhesive, or circuit components. If the material supplying work is not smoothly carried out, then a time duration in which an operation of a substrate-related-operation performing machine is stopped is increased, and accordingly an operation efficiency of the machine is decreased. In addition, the recovering work is an assisting work to repair a failure of a substrate-related-operation performing machine, such as an urgency stop, production of a defective product, or lowering of an operation speed, and restore the machine to its normal condition. If a substrate-related-operation performing machine fails, then a worker needs to quickly deal with the failure.
Of the assisting works, the material supplying work is carried out frequently, for many objective machines. Therefore, it is difficult to efficiently manage those material supplying works. To smoothly carry out material supplying works, Patent Document 1 proposes to predict a time when electronic components will run short in an electronic-component mounting machine and inform, 5 minutes before the predicted time, a worker responsible for the machine, of a number representing a position where components are to be supplied, and a sort of the components. In addition, Patent Document 2 proposes to inform all workers of information including a predicted time when electronic components will run short.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 9-223896
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-164697